


crucible

by llassah



Series: slave to fate, kings, chance and desperate men [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Banshee Lydia Martin, Character Death Fix, Gen, Post-Episode: s03e23 Insatiable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 14:59:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1351666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llassah/pseuds/llassah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"No," she says quietly, then louder. Stiles stirs next to her. He’s dying too, maybe— this state of not-death, of void. He opens his eyes. "No," she says again, and he grips her hand in his and it’s cold and his grip’s weak.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>”Go to her,” he whispers, and she doesn’t look back.</em>
</p><p>There have to be good points to being a Banshee, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	crucible

"No," she says quietly, then louder. Stiles stirs next to her. He’s dying too, maybe— this state of not-death, of void. He opens his eyes. "No," she says again, and he grips her hand in his and it’s cold and his grip’s weak.

”Go to her,” he whispers, and she doesn’t look back.

It’s a tableau. Frozen. It’s this suspended moment of silence before the screaming rushes back in. None of them are doing anything; it’s like they’re waiting for time to move backwards. “Allison?” 

She has to ask, hates how her voice shakes, because Allison’s dead and she feels it through her bones, her veins. Her  _best friend_ 's dead. Her  _sister._ “I’m so sorry,” Scott says, his voice hoarse, shoulders bowed forwards with the weight. “She—I’m so sorry.” He’s still stroking her hair back from her forehead, doesn’t look away from her face for a second.

"This isn’t— this isn’t real. This isn’t happening," and Chris Argent’s on his knees like his strings have been cut and Kira’s in her mother’s arms, and Isaac looks like every scrap of hope is gone, and "this isn’t happening." This time she means it. 

Peter sounds indulgently surprised when he picks up, then his voice goes soft and strange. She doesn’t want pity. Not from him, so when he asks her what she can offer in return, she tells him she’ll let him live. “I knew you could be magnificent,” he murmurs, and she ends the call.

"You’ll need something of hers," Stiles says from behind her. He’s running on air, something animating his limbs but he’s not dead. "Something meaningful." Chris Argent looks up from her to Stiles, back again. 

"Lydia, you can’t—"

Stiles laughs behind her, this odd broken sound. “I’m a banshee,” she says. “I think you’ll find I can.”

Kira comes forward, doesn’t quite meet her eyes. She probably— she feels ugly. Like a raw wound. But strong. “Can I help?” she asks, and Lydia waits until she makes eye contact, holds it as they breathe together. She can hear thunder in the distance, the crackling of a fire. A forge. She puts out her hand, and Kira takes it, grip a little damp, but strong.

"Stiles, sit down," she says, not looking behind her. Stiles sits— well, collapses, and she can hear the scrape of his shoes as he rearranges his limbs.

"Something meaningful?" Chris asks, and she watches as he draws strength from somewhere. He still doesn’t think she can do it. He walks over to his daughter’s body, grips Scott on the shoulder, leans on him as he kneels down and kisses her forehead. "Like this?" and he reaches down, blood dripping onto his hand and draws out a small object, glinting silver and red. He kisses it, too, gets blood on his lips and for all that he pretends to be enlightened, this is blood and guts and moonlight, wolves howling. "She made it. She wanted— she wanted to change tradition. Change how we did things. We make bullets. She…" 

He wipes the arrowhead on his shirt, hands it to her and everything fits into place. She looks at Stiles, and he nods, and his smile for a moment makes him look like he’s younger, in love with her when things were simple. “Silver and lightning. And a werewolf,” she says, and he  _winks_ , honest to God winks at a time like this. 

"And a banshee," Peter says, steps out of the shadows like he’s been waiting for it. Derek rolls his eyes at his uncle’s back, goes straight to Stiles. "You worked it out. I knew—"

"Shut up," she mutters, because there are threads of sound and she needs to follow them, blocks out Stiles’s quiet snicker. She can hear Mrs Argent, and someone younger, strong and frightening but they both love Allison, have shaped her. She can hear Allison, but faintly and she chases the thread down, takes shaky steps forward so she can see Allison’s face. The arrowhead is cutting into her hand. She opens it, palm up. "You too," she tells Kira, and they join hands around it, she forces the sharp edge into Kira’s palm and there’s a smell like the ground after rain. Petrichor. "Now you," she tells Scott. She’s crying, hasn’t really stopped. Scott brings the arrowhead down in a sharp line over his collarbone, hands it back to her.

"You can do this. You’re amazing," he says, and she feels a little bit of herself coming back.

"I know," she tells him and he nods because he believes it. 

There’s a hole in Allison’s heart. It’s stopped beating. The best part of her, broken. Before Scott and Kira can react, she grabs the arrowhead, plunges it deep into the wound, grabs their hands, and screams. She screams for her sister, for the other half of her soul. She screams because they’re too young. She screams because Stiles is dying and he knows it, and Allison’s dead and she accepted it, because she should have more than a first love, she should have a fourth and fifth, a sixth.

The thunder’s getting louder, bright lights flashing behind her eyes and Scott roars, roars like he did at the nemeton, not a broken howl but a call. Other voices join his, other howls and she keeps screaming until she tastes blood, until she can smell molten metal, until her hand’s burning, burning. She screams until it’s quiet. Quiet, the only sound a breath. She puts her hand on Allison’s heart, and feels it beating. “Find a better ending,” she whispers, feels a hand over hers. She opens her eyes and smiles.

"Yes," she breathes.


End file.
